robbieinjapan.com

I had the TV on and they were playing what looked like some anime episode from the 80s. The interesting thing though was at the beginning, they flashed on this message that said something like “Children, if you are watching this, please make sure your room is brightly lit.” It reminded me of an incident that happened a while ago involving the Pokemon anime and I think perhaps they added that message in because of that particular incident. Basically, sometime in 1997, they aired an episode of Pokemon which apparently caused seizures in some people and made hundreds of others feel ill. Pretty crazy, eh? Perhaps that’s the reason why they have the message advising children to watch the show in a brightly lit room now.

Besides seizure-inducing anime episodes, there are quite a few things on Japanese TV that I don’t think would ever get produced or shown in the US. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BtNN6M97q8 or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEKqU1fkYCI.

But interestingly enough, the first day that I got the TV and was watching it a few weeks ago, I remember that I was changing channels and they had some short clip where they were talking (in Japanese) about a snow storm in the United States and I was like, “wait a minute… isn’t this supposed to be Japanese TV?” Since I was sitting in front of my computer, I went to yahoo.com and looked at the headlines of the news there and sure enough, there was a headline about a major snow storm, lol. On TV, they even had footage of the storm in the US. I have to wonder, what does a snow storm in the US have anything to do with affairs in Japan? Perhaps it was just a slow day for news, lol.

But this isn’t the only way that I am connected to the US despite being on almost exactly the opposite side of the planet from the east coast. My computer allows me to read news on the Internet, so often times, I know about something that’s happened in the United States before my friends (who are there right now) do.

Also, before I came to Japan, I became interested in a TV show called “The Office”, perhaps you’ve seen it. A long while ago, my Dad was watching it on TV when I happened to walk into the room and so that’s how I first learned of it. Except watching it there for a few minutes, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen the show on TV. I’ve seen all the episodes of the three seasons (thus far) but always on my computer. I started downloading the episodes when I was working in Boston this past summer and had a lot of free time.

So, even here in Japan, I’ve continued this. Every week, a new episode comes out on Thursday. This episode is captured on to the computer by someone somewhere and then it gets uploaded as a torrent to a torrent site where I download the torrent and then begin to actually download the file from people. So, even though I am in Japan, I still get to enjoy my favorite TV show back in the United States, albeit on Fridays since we’re a day ahead here, lol.

I think this also represents somewhat of a trend away from the TV. I know that TV shows that occur on extended cable channels (the ones you have to pay even more money for) are very popular on torrent sites, presumably because people who aren’t paying for extended cable want to see these shows.

Yet, for the normal shows like “The Office”, one of the other advantages of seeing it on the computer is that when I download the shows off of torrents, the person who uploaded it has already gone through the trouble of removing all of the commercials, so that I only see the actual show. I’m sure this does not sit well with the TV networks who make money off of the advertisements. I guess in this case, the only winner would be Staples because I think they signed a contract for product placement in “The Office”. I assume this is the case since Staples seems to come up a bit too often in the show like the large Staples logo on one of the trash bins displayed prominently in one episode, or the fact that the boss of the Stamford branch leaves Dundler Mifflin for Staples or more recently, the fact that Dwight takes a job as a Staples salesperson while he hunts for other jobs. These types of things can’t be removed from the episode so easily lol.

But besides movies, I’m also able to enjoy other American entertainment like movies. Since I’ve been in Japan, I’ve downloaded and watched these movies on my computer: Magnolia, Top Gun, Real Genius, Little Miss Sunshine, Borat and Deliverance.

I also saw Cruel Intentions on my computer but that was because a Japanese friend of mine, Ayaka, and I went to a DVD/Music rental store called Tsutaya and rented the DVD. Tsutaya is a pretty nice place. There’s actually a store near where I live but Ayaka and I went to a large one in Shibuya and they had a section for American movies that had pretty much everything you could think of, as well as a lot of the recent films that have come out. Plus, it’s nice because although all of the movies have the original American soundtrack, the DVDs also come with Japanese subtitles and Japanese dubbing. I may have to use these features more often for some Japanese practice lol. They also have Japanese CDs that you can rent which I’m interested in because it’s very difficult to find Japanese CDs to download online. I may just have to sign up for an account at Tsutaya.

Anyway, I really wanted to see Borat when it came out in the United States but I refuse to see cammed versions of movies because the quality is just too bad. So I waited until the movie was released on DVD recently so that I could download the DVD rip. It was a very funny movie, of course. Although I wish he had done extended interviews/dialogues with the people he was talking with.

Also, I had always heard that Top Gun was a good movie but I don’t see why it was that famous. Perhaps it’s because of Tom Cruise’s performance at the time as a driven, slightly crazy jet fighter pilot. But, see, I saw this movie not in 1986 when it came out, but only after such incidents as Tom Cruise becoming a scientologist (driven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQCR02Unqhg) and Tom Cruise being on Oprah (slightly crazy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8rdehjhBI). So, how can I applaud him for his “performance” when he was actually just being himself? lol

Also, Deliverance, which came out in 1972, was probably one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time. It sort of reminded me of another film called “I Spit On Your Grave” which came out six years later in 1978 because the two films have some similar thematic content and have similar scenery. To be honest, I’m not really sure how I got “Deliverance” on my computer. Obviously I downloaded it but I knew nothing about the film before I started watching it and I don’t really remember what prompted me to begin downloading the movie in the first place. Perhaps I had seen it recommended on some website somewhere and had begun to download it on a whim. I often download movies on whims after hearing about them.

At any rate, it was clear the movie was based on a book because of the way that the themes were shown and introduced, including a lot of the dialogue. The movie centers around four men from Atlanta, Georgia who decide to head into the wilderness for a canoe trip on a river before it’s turned into a dam and a lake. The movie follows the four mens’ run ins with the hillbillies they encounter on their trip.

It was interesting to me to watch this because it made me realize that I had never really been to the South. The furthest south I’ve been is Washington DC. Well, with one exception, which was when my family and I went to Disney World which is in Florida, but I don’t think that really counts lol. Anyway, besides that, the movie also showed the space and lack of understanding that separated the two groups of the four suburban men from Atlanta and the “mountain people”. Being in Japan which has a culture very different from that in the United States, I’ve never really felt that way in my relation to Japanese people, perhaps because I know the language and have had to study the culture in class but it’s interesting to me that there could exist such a cultural gap within even a state in the United States. I didn’t need to go outside the United States to see different cultures, I could have just gone into the hills!

All in all, I liked this movie a lot. Also, even though I downloaded this movie, they had a short segment after the movie at the end which showed some scenes from the VHS tape version of the movie for some reason, as opposed to the DVD version which made up what I saw. I have to say, wow, DVDs really did improve upon VHS. The DVD version of the movie was much sharper and somehow, the VHS version just had that VHS feel to its picture; I’m not really sure how to describe it.

So, my computer and the internet here not only allow me to get information from across vast physical distances but also across vast time distances. It’s pretty amazing that I am able to watch a movie from the United States that was shot and shown in 1972 over here in Japan in the year 2007. After finishing watching Deliverance and being immersed in that world of the South, I had an odd feeling as I realized that if I stepped outside my dorm, I wouldn’t be hearing English and seeing Americans but rather, I would be hearing Japanese and seeing Japanese people. It made the South seem suddenly very, very far away.

I suppose it won’t be too far away for too long since I will be returning to the United States for a short while but I’ll talk about that more in my next entry…

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 5:03 am and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.